Vega's *Heavyweight* display and computer; edition 2012

[k0nsl]

I'm following this ! Very interesting and you have done some hard work Vega.

-k0nsl

[Callsign_Vega]

ASUS RAMPAGE IV EXTREME or EVGA X79 Classified?

Both have MB water blocks available from EK.

[Manicdan]

i have no opinion on what MB to get cause im not sure about perf and overclocking of those chips. but if we know that IB info is coming soon, id wait to see what happens. but if your already spending this much, i guess its ok to take a slight risk and be wrong and deal with the cost of correcting it.

also, have your other GPUs come in yet? mine is due tomorrow and it feels like i ordered it forever ago.

[Callsign_Vega]

i have no opinion on what MB to get cause im not sure about perf and overclocking of those chips. but if we know that IB info is coming soon, id wait to see what happens. but if your already spending this much, i guess its ok to take a slight risk and be wrong and deal with the cost of correcting it.

also, have your other GPUs come in yet? mine is due tomorrow and it feels like i ordered it forever ago.

No, they are still inbound.

I wonder if X79 with it's native 16x/8x/8x/8x bandwidth would edge out the Z77 Sniper 3's PLX 8x/8x/8x/8x when I am running four highly overclocked 680's at high resolution and refresh rates.

I guess I could get an X79 and 3960X now and get a Sniper 3 and 3770k when the release and pit them against each other and then sell the loser LOL.

[Phatboy69]

I did some research a while ago on X58 nf200 vs native vs P67 nf200 and the results were varied but not by more than 2% and sometimes in favour of 1 or the other dependant on the workload/title.

It has to do with the fact the NF200 (and now PLX chips) actually can reduce CPU/PCIe traffic as long as you have enough width! (ie 16x) And in some cases it will be faster because the data is sent once from the CPU to the bridge chips and the bridge chips then broadcast the data to the GPUs removing traffic from the CPU/PCIe bus. But only in some instances!
Differences are very small and will probably be within the margin of error on Z77 using PCIe 3.0 vs X79 PCIe 3.0

I also think that from memory the result will vary slightly because of the different SLI/xfire communications protocols. I cant remember which but I think nvidia now uses parallel and ATI/AMD uses serial comms over the SLI/xfire connectors which can cause differences too. Cant find anything current on the SLI/crossfireX bridge configs from Nvidia/ATI so forgive me if Im wrong or out of date!

Put simply I dont think you will see much difference. The different CPU architectures and other onboard/bios latencies are more likely to have an influence.

https://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?...e=1&print=true

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...re,2910-9.html

[Utnorris]

I say go with the Z77 just because the overall cost of the MB and chip should be less and I bet the performance difference will be very little if any. If I had to go x79 today though I would get the Rampage over the EVGA just because Shamino is behind it and it should overclock quite well and bios support should be better. Personally, I am not too impressed with the x79 series. The x58 series was way better than the P55 series, but I don't think that is the same with the x79 and the Z68/Z77 series, especially if the z77 series is able to do 4 way SLI/CF.

[Callsign_Vega]

Good info guys.

[Callsign_Vega]

Sweet, got a Rampage IV Extreme and a nice clocking 3960X inbound and the other three GTX 680's in the mail. Now I just need to find some of that 2666 MHz DDR3 4x 4GB. Or do you guys think 2400MHz will suffice?

I might have to re-think my cooling loop on the CPU side to give it more breathing room now.

[fr0wn3r]

2400MHz will suffice but when you've already got all the best for your project would be nice to see the best DDR in it too. OFC, if search and cash don't show as big problems...

[nigelke]

you are xtreme

But i just love what you are doing so I will keep an eye out on this build

[stren]

For sb-e from what sin was saying the IMC usually struggles above 2133, so yeah 2400 should be fine, although when you move to IB it should be able to handle a good bit more, but then you can always upgrade then anyway. My 3930 has been sitting here for a month and I haven't had time to finish the build lol

[Callsign_Vega]

I went with the Team Group 2400 MHz 4x 4GB kit that runs 9-10-10-28. I think that should be pretty good.

[Callsign_Vega]

Well I broke down and have four of these inbound:




I can't help it, EK water blocks draw me in like crack to a crack-whore!

I am going to hold off on the Rampage IV Extreme motherboard VRM and chip-set liquid blocks and the four RAM blocks until I am sure that is the route I want to take for my permanent setup.

[Levesque]

The VRMs on the Rampage IV are getting burning hot when overclocking. I even had some throttling over 5.0 with the stock heatsink.

If you don't install a waterblock, then you will need a fan directly on those, or they will get toasty pretty fast. Installing the EK block on my RIV solved that problem. No more throttling.

SO be sure to compare your results at let's say 4.6 vs 5.2. On air, for me 4.6 was faster because of the toasty VRMs. With waterblocks, 5.2 was alot faster.

[Manicdan]

Well I broke down and have four of these inbound:




I can't help it, EK water blocks draw me in like crack to a crack-whore!

I am going to hold off on the Rampage IV Extreme motherboard VRM and chip-set liquid blocks and the four RAM blocks until I am sure that is the route I want to take for my permanent setup.

done feel bad, i have a nickel plated acteal inbound myself. the stock cooler just is not that strong. people who think it is just dont care about noise like i do.

[WCRF]

I went with the Team Group 2400 MHz 4x 4GB kit that runs 9-10-10-28. I think that should be pretty good.

Good choice, you would need to find a good CPU sample with strong IMC to handle 2600+ RAM frequency, both mine 3960x/ 3930k could not.

[Callsign_Vega]

The VRMs on the Rampage IV are getting burning hot when overclocking. I even had some throttling over 5.0 with the stock heatsink.

If you don't install a waterblock, then you will need a fan directly on those, or they will get toasty pretty fast. Installing the EK block on my RIV solved that problem. No more throttling.

SO be sure to compare your results at let's say 4.6 vs 5.2. On air, for me 4.6 was faster because of the toasty VRMs. With waterblocks, 5.2 was alot faster.

Ya, I will keep the clocks down until I am sure I want to keep the RIVE/3960X instead of the Z77 setup that I will test. If I keep the RIVE it will get the EK blocks.

done feel bad, i have a nickel plated acteal inbound myself. the stock cooler just is not that strong. people who think it is just dont care about noise like i do.

My 680's run extremely quiet. But then again I run the fan at 100% as I don't care about the noise with the computer being in a different part of the house from where I sit to use the computer. The GTX 680's also max out on stock air at 57 C. Pretty crazy!

Good choice, you would need to find a good CPU sample with strong IMC to handle 2600+ RAM frequency, both mine 3960x/ 3930k could not.

I bought Loud_Silences 3960X:

http://hwbot.org/submission/2236457_...in_57sec_610ms

Hopefully I will be able to get it to at least 5.2GHz under chilled water.

[Callsign_Vega]

Double Post

[Manicdan]

My 680's run extremely quiet. But then again I run the fan at 100% as I don't care about the noise with the computer being in a different part of the house from where I sit to use the computer. The GTX 680's also max out on stock air at 57 C. Pretty crazy!

nice
i dont go above 60% fan speed, and that is a nice subtle noise mostly of air moving and not much fan whine.
sure my temps are in the 80s, but that will be fixed by saterday.

[l0ud_sil3nc3]

Good choice, you would need to find a good CPU sample with strong IMC to handle 2600+ RAM frequency, both mine 3960x/ 3930k could not.

it has a pretty decent IMC, 2400 runs with no problems on multiple sets of memory

http://hwbot.org/submission/2233841_...sdram_1320_mhz

[Callsign_Vega]

Working on the ambient side of the loop today. Setting up to test the 3960X and RIVE under water.






Mocking up components to test routing of liquid lines. 1/2" ID - 3/4" OD Norprene tubing is hard to bend and fit in tight places.





The Team Group 2400 9-11-11-28 RAM came in (4x 4GB).





Working on some of the supply/return valve systems.





Made a custom stand out of some old Ikea speaker stands.





Reservoir up top with a couple silver kill coils.





Liquid line routing. The open ended valves that are shut will attach to the Geo-thermal section of the cooling loop.





Testing out the loop and checking for leaks.





Getting rid of air in the system as been a huge PITA. I am going to have to come up with some sort of custom pump/system to force water through the system and flush all the air out under pressure. The Iwaki RD-30 is a beast of a pump in a closed system but if there is some air in the lines it has a hard time getting going. The system already used 1 gallon of distilled water and I ran out so I wasn't able to fire the rig up. Tomorrow is another day.

[asura]

Manual control? I'd have thought the amount of skill and technology you're throwing at this thing, you'd be using solenoid valves controlled by an ardunio or the like... actuated by capacitive switches, or something equally swish.

[Callsign_Vega]

Manual control? I'd have thought the amount of skill and technology you're throwing at this thing, you'd be using solenoid valves controlled by an ardunio or the like... actuated by capacitive switches, or something equally swish.

LOL, I was thinking about that until I realized that would be a lot of trouble and expense for something I wouldn't be moving but a couple times per year I can always upgrade in the future though if I get bored. I was thinking along the lines of:






I am thinking of re-arranging the cooling loop so that:

Branch #1 = CPU > X79 > VRM/MOSFET

Branch #2 = 680 > 680 > 2x RAM Sticks

Branch #3 = 680 > 680 > 2x RAM Sticks

I think the balance between those would be fairly close. The VRM/MOSFET coolers are really low restriction and would pretty much balance the resistance of the 2x RAM sticks. So essentially it will be one CPU block versus two GPU blocks to balance resistance. Anyone think the resistance balance would be way off on the above configuration? (Doesn't need to be perfect)

[UrbanSmooth]

Subbing in, just happened to stumble upon this build log from your last build log.

Lately, I've been wondering if Quad SLI/CF PCI-e 3.0 x16 would have a considerable advantage over x8. I will definitely keep an eye on this project as it has many similarities to my next high-end gaming/workstation build coming soon.

Keep up the beast work, Vega.

[Callsign_Vega]

Got my RAID 0 setup (boy that was a nightmare on X79), Win 7 installed. Games are downloading. Got three GTX 680's now. This is why I love nVidia:



Even something as complicated as running three CRT's in portrait is a snap. Install driver, hit configure Surround displays, bam - organize screens and your done. Even these early drivers work really well. Thankfully nVidia allows each card to use it's own RAMDAC for each FW900, something AMD cannot do.


Setup is kinda a mess while I install and test stuff:




The 3960X at stock setting under maximum-Intel Burn Test only reaches a max temp of 41 C on the cores using the ambient radiator. I used Thermaltake Chill Factor III this time around and it appears to be doing quite well.